According to the web article, “Insect Tea, A Wonderful Work in the Chinese Tea Culture”, the authors described “insect tea, listed in the ‘Compendium of Materia Medica’ by Li Shizhen, is not only a traditional drink for the ethnic minority in the southwest China, but also one of China’s traditional export commodities. Insect tea is made of the feces of insects that feed on plants, and characterized by minimal dose, enjoyable tea flavour, few tea residues, and superb transparency” (Li, Pan, et. al., 2013).

For your summative assessment, work in a small group (3-5 people ideally), explore sources from the web about this special type of Chinese tea, and use what you have learned from this online project to answer the following questions:

• What are the main characteristics of insect tea? Why is it so popular in China?
• What are the medical and nutritional values of insect tea? How does it affect Chinese tea culture?
• What are the differences in Chinese tea ceremony between insect tea and other types of Chinese tea? (Choosing one type of Chinese tea as an example to compare with insect tea)

This assignment is worth 50% of your final grade. In the following is the requirements of the assignment:

• All questions above are included
• Academic sources or references from other web are included
• Minimum 600 words

There are multiple online tools you might want to use and organize your group project. Options include Google Docs, Google Slides, or another medium that you find more appropriate. The important thing is that this assignment is easy to access and use for a group work and every person in your group can edit together. After completing this assignment, please reply to this post to share the link or email me your link.

Reference

XU, L., PAN, H., LEI, Q., XIAO, W., PENG, Y., & XIAO, P. (2013). Insect tea, a wonderful work in the chinese tea culture: TEA – FROM BUSHES TO MUGS:COMPOSITION, STABILITY AND HEALTH ASPECTS. Food Research International, 53(2), 629-635.